She sat in the listing red vinyl chair and I stood behind her as we watched the short clip Jenny had sent me.
‘I don’t get it,’ Bohler said, leaning back after squinting at the figure moving behind the curtains.
‘I think your tipster, whoever it was—’
‘Shea, right?’ she interrupted. ‘I mean, who else had need for us to think you killed Marilyn Paul? Not Wade; he wants no attention drawn to this case at all.’
I told her about my post-midnight trip to the back of Wade’s property.
‘Ah …’ She shook her head hard. ‘Criminal trespass onto his property, breaking and entering into his outbuilding?’
I nodded.
‘And you’re sure it was the same exact Ford Explorer parked in that sunken garage, the same exact one you were chasing the night I pulled you over?’ The disbelief in her voice was clear. ‘You’re positive Timothy Wade, our next senator, risked his future, his enormous stature, everything, to come for you that night, to do you harm? But because you spotted him first and came charging out, you hero you, he got scared and took off? You really want me to believe that?’
‘You were there. You saw it.’
‘I was just pulling up when you shot past me and turned onto Thompson Avenue. I saw nothing except you driving crazy. I pulled you over before you killed someone.’
She pointed to the image frozen on the screen. ‘And that’s supposed to mean what?’
‘That maybe it wasn’t Timothy Wade who came at me that night.’ I pointed to the screen. ‘If I’m right, that’s Theresa Wade and she’s not paralyzed at all. She can move about freely.’
‘Come on, Elstrom. So what if she’s been able to walk a little, all this time? Maybe she can only go a few feet on crutches or with braces. So what if she’s able to drive and came to your place? Maybe she’s a little nuts. No crime there.’
‘She could have killed Marilyn Paul. She could have driven the corpse over here, in that Ford Explorer, so her brother could be alibied elsewhere. No one would ever suspect a woman who is wheelchair-bound.’
‘I need more coffee and you need less,’ she said.
We went back to the kitchen to wind ourselves up with more of her excellent grounds.
‘Do you know Jennifer Gale?’ I asked.
‘Television reporter. She left Chicago.’
‘She’s back. She got beaten when they went to retrieve surveillance cameras she’d placed across from the Wade estate.’
‘Is she as crazy as you? Why would she place cameras across from Wade’s house?’
‘She’s working on some sort of story, I suppose. Her attackers, who I think are Wade’s guards, grabbed one camera but Jenny’s cameraman had already gotten to another and I went back to grab the third.’ I pointed across the hall. ‘That video we just watched came from that third camera.’
‘Ask yourself: how many cameras are aimed at the Wade place? It’s only going to get worse after he’s elected senator. You’re crazy if you think the Wades hurt people for coming with cameras. Or do you think Jennifer Gale was assaulted because the Wades don’t want it known Theresa can really walk? This is too weird, Elstrom.’
‘I take your point: the Wades are used to people photographing their house. But I do think Wade’s guards beat up Jenny and her cameraman to stop them from recording something else.’
‘What?’
‘A grave on Wade’s property.’
‘I was wondering when you’d get back to your notion that Timothy Wade drove Halvorson’s body back to his estate. But Elstrom, get real. It’s been twenty years. If Wade did bury Halvorson there, he threw him in a hole without embalming the corpse. There’d be nothing left. Besides, if that convenience store killing went down as you say, Wade didn’t do anything wrong to begin with. He cleaned up the mess, is all, and that’s a far lesser crime than murder, even if it could be proved.’
‘Maybe there’s more than one grave on Wade’s land,’ I said.
‘You think because our tipster was really Shea, and that because he hasn’t called in a while, it’s because Wade killed him and buried him on his property?’
‘Wade, or his guards.’
She leaned back and smiled. ‘I know why you called earlier, suggesting this little chat. You think Wade’s guards weren’t worried about Jennifer Gale filming Halvorson’s grave. You think they were worried about her finding fresh digging.’
I pushed the package of uncooked Peeps toward her. ‘Have a reward for brilliant thinking.’
She grabbed a Peep, pushed it whole into her mouth and gave me a goofy yellow grin. ‘What the hell, Elstrom?’ It came out muffled through the marshmallow.
‘Is it so hard to believe that Shea approached Wade, saying “I’ve proved I’m willing to kill both Willard Piser and Marilyn Paul. Pay me big and I go away, or I tell everybody about the convenience store”?’
‘But Wade didn’t buy it?’ she asked.
‘I wouldn’t have, either. There was nothing to prevent Shea from coming back to the well time and again.’
‘So Wade killed Shea.’
‘Or his sister did.’
‘Or his guards, right? There are all kinds of killers on that estate?’
‘There’s a lot to be learned there,’ I said.
She studied my eyes for a moment, knowing what I was asking. Finally, she said, ‘I don’t think any judge, Democrat or rare Republican, would give me a warrant to dig up our next senator’s estate based upon such a flimsy theory, even if I could get the case back from Chicago PD.’
‘Have another Peep,’ I said.
‘Damn it, Elstrom.’